Windows 8 XAML Controls 13.2 Preview

With Full Support for Windows 8.1 Preview

Glendale, California — July 30, 2013 — DevExpress is proud to announce the immediate availability of DevExpress Windows 8 XAML Controls 13.2 Preview with full support for Windows 8.1 Preview. The entire product line of over 30 controls has been overhauled to take full advantage of the new operating system features.

Windows 8.1, code-named "Blue", is a highly anticipated update to the Microsoft operating system and scheduled for release within the next month. We have updated and tested all our Windows 8 Controls against the new OS version and utilized the newly available API to provide the following benefits:

A new application resizing mechanism.

Faster XAML load thanks to the ability to precompile to a binary format.

On-demand style loading.

Once Microsoft officially releases Windows 8.1, we will issue an update that will target the final version.

Release Timeline

The Preview release with Windows 8.1 support is tagged as version 13.2. When Windows 8.1 is released to manufacturing in August, we will immediately release a separate installer for the final version 13.2 of the Windows XAML controls. They will remain in a separate installer until we release the full version 13.2 in late 2013, when we will merge them back into the main installer again.

Compatibility Questions

Subscribers will only be able to use DevExpress Windows 8 XAML Controls v13.2 with Windows 8.1, and not an unpatched Windows 8, since certain APIs will be missing. If customers are writing AppStore apps for Windows 8, they should continue using v13.1.

Note that they can still use version 13.1 of the DevExpress Windows XAML controls in Windows 8.1 in compatibility mode. In this particular case they may encounter warnings caused by changes in Windows 8.1 API. It may also be noticed that the non-optimized controls load slower than the optimized ones.

Try the Preview Release

Active Windows 8 XAML Controls subscribers can obtain the release by logging in to their DevExpress Accounts. It can also be freely downloaded by anyone for evaluation purposes. Note that the release does not grant any redistribution rights and is set to expire on September 7th, 2013.